I Care a Lot

 I Care a Lot (2021 -- Oscars 2020)

Starring Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Eiza González, Chris Messina, Macon Blair, Alicia Witt, and Dianne Weist

Directed by J Blakeson

Written by J Blakeson

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Hannah and Her Sisters

 Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Starring Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey, Dianne Weist, Woody Allen, Michael Caine, Carrie Fisher, Lloyd Nolan, Maureen O'Sullivan, Daniel Stern, and Max von Sydow

Directed by Woody Allen

Written by Woody Allen

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

The Mule

The Mule (2018)

Starring Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Peña, Dianne Weist, Taissa Farmiga, Ignacio Serricchio, and Andy Garcia

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Written by Nick Schenk

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: C-

Movie Review - Five Nights in Maine

Five Nights in Maine (2016)

Starring David Oyelowo, Dianne Wiest, Hani Furstenberg, Rosie Perez, and Teyonah Parris

Directed by Maris Curran

***This film is currently streaming via Netflix***

Good performances can't save Five Nights in Maine, a movie that really fails to have a decent emotional arc for any of its characters as it traverses its depressing subject matter.  Sherman (David Oyelowo) has just lost his wife Fiona (Hani Furstenberg) in a horrible car accident.  Prior to her death, she had just talked about going to Maine to see her dying mother Lucinda (Dianne Wiest).  Fiona and Lucinda didn't get along well and Sherman has never cared for his mother-in-law because of this.  However, he feels the need to visit as it was something his wife wanted to do again before her mother passed away.  Over the course of five nights, Lucinda and Sherman discuss a variety of topics as they try to reconcile with one another while dealing with the death of their loved one.

The first half hour of Five Nights in Maine is some powerful stuff.  David Oyelowo is riveting as he is given the news of his wife's death and he's just as compelling in the aftermath where depression rears its ugly head.  The problem with writer-director Maris Curran's film lies when Sherman goes to meet Lucinda.  Lucinda is played by Dianne Wiest as a curmudgeonly stoic witch of a woman which is certainly one way people could react to the death of a loved one, but her complete lack of compassion towards Sherman at the outset seems a bit farfetched.  While Lucinda eventually slightly warms to Sherman, their interaction with one another grows repetitive as Sherman is forced to simply take the unwarranted criticism that Lucinda constantly doles out.  Once again, Oyelowo is very good here and Wiest has moments where she shines, but for the latter her character is so off-putting that it's tough to care about her loss.  Plus, as mentioned above, by the time the film's conclusion rolls around, I couldn't help but think that nothing had really changed between the two characters since their first meeting.  The characters are roughly in the same spot at the end as they were at the beginning and it leads to an unsatisfying eighty minutes.  In the end, it's a real shame because Oyelowo is at his best here, but the lack of an arc for his character brings what could have been a fantastic performance down a notch.  Nice supporting turns from Teyonah Parrris (who continues to shine in everything I've seen her in) and a subdued Rosie Perez also can't help save this one and end up making me even more upset that it doesn't really work in the end.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Sisters

Sisters (2015)

Starring Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Ike Barinholz, Maya Rudolph, John Leguizamo, Bobby Moynihan, James Brolin, and Dianne Wiest

Directed by Jason Moore

Every review of Sisters that I read seemed to indicate that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler deserved a better film than what was placed in front of them when it came to this flick, but, if I'm being quite honest, I'm not sure they do.  I say that not nastily, but simply to indicate that Fey and Poehler are known and acclaimed (quite deservedly) for the their work on the small screen.  Not every tv star (and certainly not every Saturday Night Live alum) is worthy of a big screen career.  And there's nothing wrong with that.  Perhaps in time I'll be proven wrong when it comes to Fey and Poehler's cinematic ventures, but Sisters is not doing the very funny duo any favors.

Drawn out for an interminably long duration, Sisters gives us Maura and Kate Ellis (Poehler and Fey) -- two sisters who return to their childhood home in Orlando after they've discovered that their aging parents (James Brolin and Dianne Wiest) have just sold it so they can move into a retirement community condo.  Angry that their parents would do such a thing without consulting them, Maura and Kate decide to live it up one last time in the house and throw a party for all their high school friends like they did in the old days.  This leads to fellow SNL and variety show actors and actresses hooting and hollering it up in sketch-like scenes that do little to forward the actual plot of the film.  (Not that the film had much of a plot to start...)

There are laughs to be had in Sisters -- and, in fact, there are moments that sustained extended laughter for me which is never easy to do particularly when you watch a movie alone in your home -- but the bigger comedic bits aren't the least bit intrinsic to the plot.  Rather than add to the story, they make you feel as if you're watching an SNL-type show where only a few of bits are actually humorous and then you get angry at yourself for wasting so much time watching it.  [Therein is the reason I refuse to watch SNL anymore.]  The script by Paula Pell (an SNL writer herself) is a sketch in search of a full-length plot and it never gets there.

As far as Fey and Poehler go, the latter fares a tiny bit better than the former, but both aren't given much with which to work.  Perhaps one of these days, the two actresses will be given a movie part really worthy for their obvious comedic talent, but Sisters does not deliver in that department.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - The Odd Life of Timothy Green

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)

Starring Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgarton, CJ Adams, Rosemarie DeWitt, David Morse, Dianne Wiest, Ron Livingston, and Common 

Directed by Peter Hedges

I am sometimes a sucker for sentimentality.  Movies that others may find too sweet or kind I can often find myself enjoying.  But I will admit that films that carry this overly nice sentiment are tricky and can easily veer off onto mind-numbingly mushy and saccharine paths that can't ever be corrected...and The Odd Life of Timothy Green takes a boatload of those unfortunate roads, all of which lead to dead ends.

When married couple Cindy and Jim Green (Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgarton) are told that they have exhausted all medical methods to conceive, they find themselves deeply saddened by the news.  To try and get themselves out of their funk, they decide to allow themselves one final evening where they imagine what their child would've been like, place these "memories" in a box, and bury them in their garden.  Magically, in the middle of the night, a freak thunderstorm causes a lightning strike in their yard and as the couple wakes up, they discover that a ten year-old boy is in their home.  After much doubt, Cindy and Jim realize that this boy (whom they name Timothy) is actually a culmination of all their dreams of who their child would have been.  Despite the fact that Timothy (CJ Adams) has leaves growing out of his ankles, he's seemingly normal and helps the Greens become the family they've long desired to be.

Of course, since Timothy appeared magically, those leaves on his ankles must mean something -- and they certainly do.  As he helps people throughout the town of Stanleyville, his leaves begin to fall off.  When all his leaves are gone...well, let's just say the Greens will find themselves in a sad state once again.

Unfortunately, nothing works in this movie at all.  The performances from Garner, Edgarton, and Adams never find the right balance with each other and with the film overall.  While I didn't find myself wishing ill will on the couple, I never really found myself rooting for them either.  The townsfolk are all caricatures without a single unique vision for a character.  There's an awful subplot involving a girl with whom Timothy falls in love that I found embarrassingly bland and completely superfluous to the point of annoying.

I realize as I'm typing this that I'm not quite accurately describing my complete dislike for the film.  The Odd Life of Timothy Green is a movie that attempts to be sugary sweet and perhaps even strives to be reminiscent of a Jimmy Stewart Americana movie of the 1940s, but it really just fails miserably.  There's simply nothing to recommend about this movie.  Nothing at all.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - Rabbit Hole

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Starring Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Dianne Weist, Miles Teller, Tammy Blanchard, and Sandra Oh

Directed by John Cameron Mitchell

On the "want to see" list for months now, I was worried that the build-up to Rabbit Hole would lead to disappointment.  Fortunately, that wasn't the case.  Although I expected the film to be a bit more emotionally draining and difficult to watch, this tale of a couple who loses their four year-old son in a tragic accident is quite powerful and bolstered by some great performances all around.

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart are Becca and Howie who, as the film opens, are still reeling from the death of their young child eight months before.  While there may have been attempts to move on, nothing has really helped their grief and their relationship is suffering at this point.  Howie finds some modicum of solace in group therapy with other parents who have lost their kids, but Becca finds the process unbearable.  Instead, she follows around the eighteen year-old teenager who accidentally hit their son with his car, but even she is unsure what relief that will provide her.  Regardless, neither of the two are emotionally healthy.

The performances of Kidman and Eckhart carry this film and without their strength, Rabbit Hole would not have been as solid as it is.  Suprisingly (to me at least), Kidman's Becca is the more subdued of the two characters.  Not without her emotional moments, Becca is a character who has internalized her pain and grief, only releasing it when pushed to the limit by others.  Instead, it's Aaron Eckhart's Howie who is the more vocal of the couple.  Played rather perfectly, Eckhart's Howie is the character that really hit me.  I don't know if it's just because we're not used to males wearing their emotions on their sleeves, but Eckhart's performance is still marinating in my mind several hours after I watched the film.  I'm quite surprised Mr. Eckhart didn't gain any awards traction this past year with this role.

Admittedly, probably because I was so looking forward to this one, I felt a tiny bit let down.  I was expecting the film, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name (and adapted for the screen by its playwright David Lindsay-Abaire), to be a bit more "loud," but instead was treated to a much more subdued emotional display.  It's a case of wrongly placed expectations.  That being said, I really want to see this story played out on a stage.  Credit goes to screenwriter/playwright Lindsay-Abaire who expanded his five-person stage play into a well-rounded film that never once felt boxed in (of course, credit must also go to director John Cameron Mitchell for making this feel like a movie rather than a filmed play).

Overall, this is a solid film with some great performances (that you'll very likely see pop up in my 2010 RyMickey Awards...whenever I get around to finishing them).

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Passengers (2008)

Starring Anne Hathaway, Patrick Wilson, Dianne Wiest, David Morse, Andre Braugher, and Clea DuVall
Written by Ronnie Christensen
Directed by Rodrigo García

Anne Hathaway Crush Alert! I'm not gonna even discuss my Anne Hathaway Attainability Theory (not that it's much of a theory), so instead let's focus on this movie that no one's ever heard of before. This flick lasted for a whopping week at our theater last year...I was away on vacation, came back, and it was already gone.

This one was reminiscent of the movie Fearless that I saw awhile ago with Jeff Daniels and Rosie Perez that, if memory serves me right, I loved (It also dealt with the survivor of a plane crash and how he dealt with the aftermath). Unfortunately, Passengers didn't really work at all.

Hathaway plays psychologist Claire Summers who is providing group therapy for the five survivors of a horrific plane crash. I love watching Hathaway onscreen (even in shit like Bride Wars) because I think she's a strong presence. However, she just wasn't believable as this intelligent psychologist...she had to spout some crappy psychobabble lines that would be difficult for anyone, but I just didn't buy her in the role. Anyway, back to the premise...Claire is intrigued with one patient in particular, Eric, who is oddly unaffected by the plane crash. There's sexual tension, the patient becomes the doctor, yada yada yada. When the five surviving passengers start disappearing, Claire begins to think that there's some elaborate scheme in place to cover up the airline's errors...and she may be right.

Unfortunately, this 90-minute film feels longer than that...it is just plodding and boring and it lays there on the screen like a lump. The writer and director bring nothing remotely exciting to the table. There's somewhat of a twist ending and it's just ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense and it makes the whole movie seem completely pointless. Even though I didn't like the flick, the twist made me dislike it even more.

The RyMickey Rating: D